Telling Fortunes
by greyrondo
Summary: “Of course,” Kuja responded softly. “One’s world… is a very private possession.”


Disclaimer: I don't own FFIX. Don't look at me like that, Square Enix!

I wrote this while watching xxxHolic. For some reason, Yuko Ichihara always reminds me of Kuja (hmm... could it be her personality? Her obsession with fancy clothes? Who knows...) Please enjoy, and tell me what you think!

Telling Fortunes

Zidane bent down, resting on his knees as he caught his breath. "Wait up," he called out, "I'm not as fast as you are. Hey, I said wait up!"

But the ephemeral blue half-bird, half-butterfly only peeped in displeasure from its momentary perch on one of the spluttering oil lamps, and fluttered off. And Zidane followed.

He might have been anywhere. The drug dens in the back streets of Lindblum, the smoke-choked fortunetellers' hovels tucked above the filthy waterways of Treno, or the rotted interior hallways of another world entirely.

"This one? This door?" Zidane wanted to know, as the blue whisper flapped patiently outside the door at the very end of the hall. It was cold here; and dark too, as if even the oil lamps didn't dare show their light here.

As soon as he put his hand to the door, it creaked open of his own accord. But even though he suddenly wanted nothing more than to turn around and return to the light, his feet pulled him through the portal without so much as a pause. He obeyed like a marionette on its strings until he found himself kneeling in a sitting position before a bowl of plain water.

The room was suffocating and the air thick with miasmic smoke; the scorch of jasmine and cedar and sandalwood and countless other scents lingered in his throat as he tried to breathe as subtly as possible.

Despite the obvious presence of incense, it was impossibly dark; the only source of light poured onto him from above: the window's shades were flung wide, allowing for the soft and piercing light of the full moon to strike the bowl and his own features.

"You came," he heard a resonant voice say to him from behind. Heavy white sleeves fell onto his shoulders; he looked to the hand on his right shoulder. He saw meticulously manicured nails varnished in the color of dulled blood, the palm wrapped in plum silk and gilded trim. A ruby entwined in antique silver glistened from the smallest finger.

"What do you mean, 'I came'? I couldn't control myself—"

"Shh," that resonant voice hushed him, and magic's subtle undertones washed over Zidane's mind, lulling him into soft peace. The sleeves lifted and there was the shift of silks and weighted linen as the source of the resonant voice rose from the floor. He walked in a half moon around Zidane, and then took a seat across from him, on the other side of the bowl.

"Kuja," Zidane said, his voice muffled by the spell. "It's you."

His voice was indignant in his mind. But in this sleepy room, his words were only plain fact, and nothing more.

The blue whisper fluttered to Kuja's outstretched hand. It perched for a moment, and then disappeared.

"Give me your hand," Kuja commanded softly, with something between condescension and love in his voice.

"What? No," Zidane said even as his hand reached across the shimmering water.

He watched Kuja's gaze lower to his palm. There was a moment of silence, but then Kuja sighed with thought. "You have questions. Many questions about the present, but your worries are grounded in the past. More to the point, the nature of your past… and why it seems to have everything to do with your future."

Zidane shuddered as Kuja's fingertips lightly stroked the lines in his palm. "There is one close to you, who wishes to be closer. You wish it too, so do not hesitate or all will be lost. There is fortune in your future, and as for your life…"

The haze in the air siphoned Zidane's senses as Kuja sat there musing.

"Tell me something I don't know already," Kuja said fiercely, darkness clouding his clear gaze.

Then he looked up, and the moment of fury might as well have been an illusion. "Now look at mine. What do you see, Zidane?"

"I'm no palm reader—" Zidane began, but fragmented knowledge flowed through his veins as soon as their palms flipped.

"Power," Zidane breathed. He took his other hand and it joined his extended palm. "Wisdom of the occult. Of the past. Of my past," Zidane realized, looking up.

Kuja gave a sideways superior smile. "And what else?"

"Whispers of… loneliness. Anger. Pain," Zidane responded, not moving his gaze from Kuja's. "Whose pain?"

Then he looked down, beyond their hands to the shimmering bowl beneath. "What is this bowl for?" Zidane asked.

Kuja laughed quietly. "They say that when the full moon shines into a body of water, that body of water becomes a portal to another world."

"Is this bowl a portal to another world," Zidane asked, keeping his voice flat even as fear and excitement rose in his heart.

"This one?" Kuja asked. "Hmm… not big enough to travel through. But it proves useful enough for seeing. Tell me, Zidane, what means the world to you?"

"What?" Zidane said. "I'm not telling you," he said, as his gaze sank into the liquid silver of the shimmering bowl.

"Of course," Kuja responded softly. "One's world… is a very private possession."

Zidane gasped. The smell of the incense smoke, the choking haze… it was all gone. The constant throbbing hum of the airship's engine replaced Kuja's rich voice. It was dark in the airship cabin, except for a single shaft of moonlight filtering in through the porthole.

He looked down. There was a plain bowl of water sitting there on the table, where he had been planning to wash his face. The moonlight struck it like an arrow.

"Kuja?" Zidane called out. But there was nothing. And he didn't know whether to smile or frown.

"I'll see you in Terra… won't I?"


End file.
